Chris Shallcross – Network Engineer

Chris Shallcross

Network Engineer

Professional Bio

I first saw a computer in the early 80’s when I was in elementary school and they taught us on a bunch of Apple II desktops with those big, paper thin floppy disks. In the mid-80’s, my mom bought a Texas Instruments TI99A that she used for word processing and I used to play video games (since I wasn’t allowed to have an Atari 2600). Then in the late 80’s, my mom bought a Tandy 1000 with a dot matrix printer from Radio Shack which she and I both shared for word processing. There’s nothing like typing a 15 page paper for school and then having to wait overnight for the print job to complete.

When I went to college in the fall of 1994, my parents bought me a Compaq Presario all-in-one desktop with Windows 3.1 (my first exposure to Windows). During my freshman orientation, I saw the internet for the first time on one of the computers in the library. It was this thing called “Yahoo” which was called a “website.” During my final semester of college, I took an internship working on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC for U.S. Senator Joe Biden of DE. This was during the famous Microsoft Antitrust hearings where Bill Gates was grilled on a daily basis by the Senators along with the owners of Dell and Netscape accusing him of unfair business practices. I passed Bill Gates in the hallways on a daily basis and even rode in the elevator with him several times.

After I graduated from college later that spring, I took my first “real” job in customer service at Wilmington Trust and after a few months, decided that I wanted to be an IT guy and took a job with one of their customers which was a small VAR (Value Added Reseller) of Network Appliance storage systems. I learned a lot and was bitten by the IT bug but after being there for 6 months, I was given the opportunity to go work for U.S. Senator Joe Biden as his personal assistant on his U.S. Senate staff working out of his Wilmington, DE district office. It was an opportunity that I couldn’t refuse so I took on the challenge and spent the next 4 years travelling with Senator Biden everywhere he went on official business throughout Delaware and the surrounding area. When not travelling with the Senator, I took on the role of being the IT Systems Administrator for his Wilmington office and taught myself server, network, desktop and printer support. I left the U.S. Senate in 2005 to pursue a career in IT full-time and went to work for one of the largest IT service providers in Delaware. After it merged with a large national IT conglomerate, I decided that corporate life wasn’t for me and went to work for a small IT managed services provider in Wilmington. Now I am happy to be continuing the growth of my career with Dorsett Connects.

Personal Bio

I was a competitive baseball player through my teens and early 20’s and still play in softball leagues during the summer. My wife and I have season tickets to the Phillies and are rabid fans. We also enjoy going to Rehoboth Beach in the summer. Other hobbies of mine include classic car restoration, riding ATVs and home improvement